The Lost Lands

Rappan Ahtuk, Slumber Tsar, The Lost City of Barakus, The Sword of Air, Stoneheart Valley

The Bristleback Inn

Pappy’s Story
Ysbel steps to the fireplace and touches the old man on the shoulder, then raises her voice a little. “Pappy! Here’s someone who wants to hear all about how you cleared out that dungeon when you were young.”
The old man starts out of his snooze and looks up at the girl, then squints at you. He uses his arms to straighten himself in his seat and squirms back and forth a little bit to get more comfortable. When you step closer, you see a pair of crutches lying next to him and note that he has a peg on his

right leg. At a second glance, though, you realize that his other leg isn’t folded underneath him; it’s missing completely, cut off at mid-thigh. A small lute lies along the left side of his chair, and one of the pottery mugs stands close by on his right, placed on the broad hearth surrounding the fireplace.
“So yer interested in an adventure, eh?” Pappy begins. “I can tell ye about some adventures. I’m a bit dry though; bring me a beer, if ye’d be so kind, girlie.” He passes his mug to Ysbel, who shakes her head at him, smiling.
“Pappy, it’s way too early in the day for you to start on the beer. I’ll get you a mug of water from the rainbarrel, though; it’ll be cool.” Ysbel starts off on her errand and Pappy smacks his mouth a few times experimentally, then turns to you.
“Did ye know that we’ve a dungeon practically in sight of our watchtowers? The Mouth of Doom, they call it, out in the middle of the forest to the south of us. Oh, my friends and I found it right enough, nigh onto fifty years ago now. I suppose it was a nice enough little dungeon, and it gave us a thrill or two, but it was nothing compared to the granddaddy of all dungeons!”
Pappy’s voice is raised, and he shakes his fist in the air. “Rappan Athuk – now that was a dungeon! My friends and I were well known at one time, though not the stuff of bards’ tales. We were powerful, and we made our presence felt. We fought malicious specters down there, and nasty creatures with big mouths that lived in heaps of trash. We battled an undead king to a standstill, though there were no winners that day and both sides crept away to lick our wounds. In fact, we got further below that dungeon than anyone else I’ve ever known. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now but I was a powerful wizard once, back before I lost my legs – and half my mind.”
Ysbel returns just then with the mug of water. Pappy takes a small sip, then downs a larger swallow with a grimace and sets the mug carefully on the hearth. Ysbel takes up her scrubbing again at the other end of the room but appears to be listening in to Pappy’s story as well.
“We weren’t about to just waltz in the front door, so we found ourselves a different entrance. It wasn’t easy going, but we got right down into the thick of things without those fiends being aware. Once down we had some trouble finding our way around; there was a confusion of low tunnels, and the darkness was so thick our lights barely allowed us to see. We followed a winding river through several caverns; one was filled with spiders, undead creatures, and nasty trolls, which was where we lost Sister Gabriola. Another cavern had a purple worm the size of a small village. To this day I think we could have just walked away quietly from the creature, but ye might know that our rogue Renfrew couldn’t leave well enough alone! He was the first one poisoned, and by the time we could pull away and tend to him, he was already dead,” Pappy says as he shakes his head.
“The levels of the dungeon proper may be made of worked stone, but down deep, where we were, it was all natural caverns. There was one especially huge one, where the ceiling was lost high above us and our lights made little bubbles of brightness in the great dark. In that situation, ye know there are always beings watching you, usually to yer hurt.
“While we were there we fought the most vile creature I have ever seen.” Pappy’s eyes narrow, as if envisioning his opponent of years past. “Out of the darkness floated this giant mass, as large as I was tall and covered in eyeballs and mouths. It turned out those eyes shot out beams of magic like those from wands! We fought like demons ourselves, I can tell ye. Our knight got up close to try to stab it with his greatsword, and discovered all those mouths were full of sharp teeth. I tried several of my specialties on it, only to realize it was more than a match for me; ye may imagine my shock when it took some of my own spells from me! We had to get cunning, especially when it tried to run away after we injured it. We finally defeated it, though, and found the treasures it had taken from other hapless victims. I recall the battle fondly now, as one of the last times I was able to use my most powerful spells and keen intelligence before something in that vile place diminished them forever.
“Many of us were injured at that point and ye can be certain it was hard to find a safe place to rest and heal. We thought we had found a place, isolated at one side of the cavern, but we were wrong. That quiet corner turned out to be guarded by huge metal statues of bulls which came alive when we got close. They put out a gas that turned my companions to stone, some temporarily but some permanently. I myself was affected for a time. The stone effect wore off but before I could recover myself one of the bulls trampled me, breaking both my legs. Sir Marlett and the elf Daresiel had both been turned to stone and the bulls trampled them also, breaking up their bodies so we had no hope of recovering them.” Pappy shakes his head again. “My remaining two companions got meself and our badly wounded dwarf out of there, and patched me up well enough that I could use my emergency scroll to take us out of that foul pit completely. We ended up back at our camp in the forest, though, and without our two healers the others managed to save my life, but not my legs. At that I suppose I’m better off than Gulim, who died of his wounds.
“One thing we never did locate was the evil temple everyone claims is there. I think somehow we passed it by and went straight to the caverns that lie below it. I don’t remember everything that happened to us beneath that twisted temple, though parts of it still give me nightmares. The worst was that even after we left, the reek of its evil continued to work on my mind and body and gradually stole my strength, my health, and most of all my intellect. I eventually learned to mend shoes, and other things I could do without need of my legs, but these days I just play a few tunes on my little lute and dream about striding through the forest in days gone by, wishing I had never heard of that accursed place.”
Pappy stops to stretch out his leg, and begins to absently rub his left thigh. “If ye be wanting to explore that foul dungeon, allow me to offer ye some pieces of advice. There’s no doubt that the most important part of any adventuring party wanting to take on Rappan Athuk is the wizard. Ye
need one who is powerful, with plenty of offensive ability. He also needs good magic items; it’s worth a bit of sacrifice by the fighters or the rogues to see a magic-wielder well equipped. A good selection of fire spells would be helpful; they’re always good against the undead and there’s a powerful lot of those waiting there in the dark.
“Now, any group wanting to explore the depths of Rappan Athuk is going to need rope, and lots of it. Ye don’t find easy stairs leading from one area to another; no, it’s down sheer drops and over rocky cliffs – and then of course it’s all to do again in reverse if ye ever want to get out. I know what yer thinking,” Pappy’s voice changes, becoming higher and slightly whiny. “What about that wizard? Can’t he just fly us all down?” He clears his throat and resumes his normal tone. “Well, to be sure he can, if ye want him to use up all his spells and have nothing left to use in a fight when ye get to the bottom. It’s better to use mundane means wherever possible and save the magicks for when ye need them most. We used our rope skills several times in difficult situations. Once we had to climb down a cliff as rats were trying to gnaw our lines!
“Another thing ye need of course is lots of light sources. Torches won’t make it, either, though it might be okay to have a few if yer in a pinch. No, ye need some source that lets ye keep both hands free! It’s no good trying to climb down that rope I mentioned a bit ago with a torch in hand – that’s a good way to take a long fall. ’Twon’t do to just carry it in yer teeth, either, as the rogue Renfrew once tried. He thought he was so clever, and so much more nimble than the rest of us – until he caught his hair on fire.” Pappy’s speech slows slightly as he reminisces. “We called him Renfrew the Red after that; I don’t think his hair would ever have grown back, even if he had lived.”
Pappy reaches for his mug and takes another drink, then sets it back down. “I’m afraid I’m worn out with all this talkin’. Though it’s nice to have an audience, I don’t usually talk this much in a week. Thank ye for listening to my adventures, but I’m in need of a little rest now.” The old man settles himself in his chair, then leans his head on one hand and his eyes drift closed. You start to turn away when you hear him mumble softly, “And whatever ye do, don’t go down the well.” You raise your eyebrows at this one last piece of advice and then walk out into the fresh air.

Don't Go Down the Well

Many hundreds of years ago, the forces of good allied to destroy the main Temple of Orcus in the ancient city of Tsar. With their temple in ruins, the surviving high priests of this accursed demon god fled the city with an army of enemies on their trail—an army of heroic fighters, clerics and paladins—led by Zelkor, a powerful wizard. The exact fate of these evil priests was then unknown, for not only did the remnants of the followers of Orcus disappear from all human reckoning, but so did the army of light that followed after them disappear as well. Some said that in the eternal scales the loss of so many good men was a fair price to pay to rid the world of so much evil.

The evil cult, however, had not been destroyed. The surviving priests and their followers instead settled on a hill near the Forest of Hope, a sylvan woodland near the Coast Road. There they found a vast underground complex of caverns and mazes, carving out a volcanic intrusion beneath the hill. There, the priests of Orcus found the perfect lair to continue their vile rituals. For many years, they carried on in secret, hidden from the light and from the knowledge of men.

Many years later, their underground delving completed, the evil priests erected a hideous mausoleum and a sunken graveyard atop the hill. It is believed that these graves are in fact the final resting place of the pursuing army of heroes that had been destroyed to a man. Soon after the mausoleum was erected the peaceful creatures of the wood began to disappear. Though many rangers and druids investigated these happenings, the cause of the creatures’ disappearance was not immediately determined. Some years later a powerful group of adventurers, led by Bofred, a high priest of Tyr, investigated the evil happenings and found the sunken graveyard leading to a labyrinthine complex. Bofred and his companions found great hordes of evil creatures in the complex. Though some of his companions returned from their expedition, telling tales of fantastic treasure and ferocious monsters, Bofred was never seen again—lost in the catacombs beneath the cursed mausoleum. For the last one hundred years, ranks of adventurers have ventured to the newfound dungeon. Many fell prey to bandits and monsters in the surrounding wilderness. Rumors suggest that of those who survived to reach the mausoleum and sunken graveyard, most were slain by guardians of green stone or perished on the very first level. Those rare few who return from deeper treks speak of horrible undead and creatures that cannot be slain. All who have explored Rappan Athuk offer this one universal piece of advice: “Don’t go
down the Well.”

Zelkor's Ferry

Bristleback Inn
“Welcome to Zelkor’s Ferry. I hope the captain didn’t question you too hard at the gate. You may be a person bent on finding an adventure, but you don’t look like a troublemaker to me.” The woman’s blue eyes seem to twinkle as she smiles at you. Her light brown hair is beginning to show some grey, but her arms look strong where she has pushed up the sleeves of her brown dress. “If it’s adventure you want, let me tell you, you’ve come to the right place. Although we hold our own here, this area can by no means be considered safe and there’s plenty for a brave soul to find and do.
“I’m Amelia, and my husband and I are the proprietors of Bristleback Inn. It’s been in my husband’s family for several generations.” She leads you into the building’s common room and continues. “A room with your board is one gold piece a night… Thank you very much. The stable is just next door and stabling for a horse or mule is one silver piece. Anything more exotic than that and you’ll have to ask Bristleback; we own the stable, too. The two fellows out there, Vort and Igor, are both decent folk and will take good care of any of your animals.”
Amelia turns to survey the room, and you take a look around also. The inn’s low-ceilinged common room is really nothing special, but out here so far from civilization it seems to have all the comforts of home. The tables are well-worn, but also well-scrubbed. In fact, a teen-aged girl with hair the color of honey is engaged in scrubbing one right now. “Don’t forget the sides, Ysbel,” Amelia says to her. The slender girl looks up at the comment, flashes a shy smile when she sees you looking at her, and then goes back to her work.
The shutters are open to let in some fresh air, and at the far end of the room a small fire burns in the fireplace as an old man snoozes in a chair nearby. Lamps are set into brackets high on the walls, to provide the most light in the evenings and also keep them out of the way of clumsy patrons. The bar is on the other side of you, before the stairs; it is supplied with a couple of kegs, and a row of pottery mugs hung on pegs on the wall. The treads on the stairs are worn in the centers, and you can see that anyone of much height will need to duck on the way up to avoid an inconvenient beam.
A door opens between the bar and the stairs, and another woman enters carrying two sealed bottles. The woman has skin the golden-brown color of good ale; her eyes are deeper brown, and she wears her black hair pulled up into a loose knot at the back of her head. “Amelia, the cook brought these up from the cellar and told me we’ll be needin’ them in here.”
Amelia nods. “I heard Bristleback tell Gumbel last night to get some more bottles up here today. Just put them in the rack under the counter, Tallie.” The woman does as instructed, than straightens to look at you. Amelia introduces her. “This is Tallie, one of our serving women. She and Ysbel stay plenty busy around here, but feel free to ask them if you need something and I’m not around.”
Suddenly from behind the door you hear a man’s voice, rather muffled, calling “Tallie!”
“That Gumbel!” she exclaims, and rolls her eyes. “I’m coming! Keep yer britches on,” she calls, then disappears again behind the door.
Amelia gives one last satisfied look at the room, then turns to you. “I need to get out back and weed the vegetables or pretty soon we aren’t going to be able to find the food for the weeds. The privies are around back to the left; the kitchen garden is to the right. If you end up around that way by mistake, watch your step because I don’t want anyone trampling on my garden. You ought to take a look around and chat with some of the people here; I’m sure several of them have things to tell you about their own experiences in this area, things that might help keep you alive when you head out looking for your destiny.” With that parting remark, Amelia also disappears through the door to the kitchen and leaves you alone.
You’re not quite alone, though, as you realize when a soft voice interrupts your thoughts. “Pardon me.” It’s the young maid; Ysbel, that was her name. She’s now working on a table nearer you, and lays down her small scrubbing brush when you turn.
“I couldn’t help but hear what Amelia said about people having things to tell you. I know someone who tells amazing stories! Some of them may even be true.” She gestures to the old man sitting in the corner by the fireplace and continues. “That’s old Russ. He’s Amelia’s grandpappy, and to hear him tell it, he may have tamed this whole area single-handedly when he was young. There’s no doubt his stories are interesting, though they might not be helpful to you. Let me just get his attention.”